Report on
John McLaughlin and The 4th
Dimension
at
Tokyo Blue Note, Weds, March 26, 2014
first show, 7pm to 8.15
by Martin
LINE-UP:
John McLaughlin (g)
Gary Husband (key,ds)
Etienne Mbappe (b)
Ranjit Barot (ds)
SET LIST:
- Little Miss Valley
- Guitar Love
- Senor CS
- Call & Answer
- The Unknown Dissident
- Echoes from Then
- Maharina
- Mother Tongues
- Hijacked
- You Know You Know (Encore)
It’s all about excitement, and, live, on
stage, with an appreciative audience to play before, it always has been. John
McLaughlin at over seventy is just as on fire as I’ve ever seen or heard him.
The opening number was ‘Little Miss Valley’,
which I last saw him play on the very same stage twenty years ago (!), during
the week residency which produced Tokyo Live. (John described Blue Note Tokyo
as their ‘second home’ in Asia). This time, though, there was an added edge and
a kinetic wildness in the performance. First of all, there was a grungy
distortion in the tone, enough to satisfy any of his followers who still yearn
for the Les Paul/Marshall stack set-up. (Now it is PRS, and he plays through
the PA.) Added to this was a quality to his play which announced that he was not going
to treat old material with kid gloves. The song’s original nuanced and more
subtle elements were essentially trashed (in the best possible way, of course),
and all the sophistication of the original was re-worked into something closer
to punk-jazz. (I’m sure Jaco would
have approved.) Sometimes this meant that, rather than follow the precise
ins-and-outs of the fine playing which suited the original, here John would virtually
smash through from one musical element to the next. (The shift from Gibson
jazz-box to PRS axe might also have something to do with this.) His approach
also led to a tendency to dive toward off-tones and atonals (sometimes by
minimal but effective use of the whammy bar) which gave his play a real sense
of musical danger, and, as stated, wildness –it also recalled Thelonius Monk's ‘idiosyncratic’
play, which, of course, is the very spirit of jazz itself. He also delighted in, when the opportunity arose, delivering a full
six-string open chord blast, that acted like a slap up against the side of the
head (to borrow the Belfast vernacular) of the musical flow. In other words, we
could witness something unpredictable in everything he did.
McLaughlin’s approach was also a product of the fiercely driving pace of the music, which is where the band surrounding him provided an environment notably different from that in which the song had first appeared, certainly more 'rocky'. Because it was so prominent, Etienne MBappe’s chunky, funky, punchy, thrilling, and incredibly fast, bass-playing was part of the reason why. Add to this the very rock-like approach of the drumming of Ranjit Barot, and you begin to see why, and how, things were different this time round.
Then there was the completely unrestrained nature of McLaughlin’s solo work in this opening tune. He has often said that music –be it jazz, or pop, or anything– and I’m paraphrasing, has to move you, rock you, shake you up. A variation on ‘It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing’. So, he set about doing precisely that, standing square in the centre of the stage, and playing a series of solos which grew in speed, complexity and intensity, and communicated to the audience sat before him that this was what jazz was really all about. One solo would appear to end, and then it would re-start, and each was driven by some sense of duende, by something beyond ordinary musical imagination, into an affecting passionate intensity. He was also clearly having a lot of fun doing this.
John’s playing was, quite simply, staggering, it was masterful, and it rocked. Get this: he plays a lightning run, which takes the solo to a place he needs it to go, yet, you can see he is either not finished, or not satisfied yet. Dramatically –and it is all drama– John flings back his left hand from the fretboard, closes his eyes into a tight frown, indicating a sudden message to himself: more! more! more! Then, he launches into an even more intense, and highly complex –but, because he is a master of the fretboard, highly fluent–further series of runs. Finally, and only after navigating a path that is now radiating total swing and groove, does he bring the tune to exactly where, in the depth of his musical imagination, he has wanted it to end up. This is what a musical journey looks like on stage. Then it’s Bravo! or something decidedly less articulate, but every bit as expressive, from the likes of us, witnessing the genius of the man
McLaughlin’s approach was also a product of the fiercely driving pace of the music, which is where the band surrounding him provided an environment notably different from that in which the song had first appeared, certainly more 'rocky'. Because it was so prominent, Etienne MBappe’s chunky, funky, punchy, thrilling, and incredibly fast, bass-playing was part of the reason why. Add to this the very rock-like approach of the drumming of Ranjit Barot, and you begin to see why, and how, things were different this time round.
Then there was the completely unrestrained nature of McLaughlin’s solo work in this opening tune. He has often said that music –be it jazz, or pop, or anything– and I’m paraphrasing, has to move you, rock you, shake you up. A variation on ‘It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing’. So, he set about doing precisely that, standing square in the centre of the stage, and playing a series of solos which grew in speed, complexity and intensity, and communicated to the audience sat before him that this was what jazz was really all about. One solo would appear to end, and then it would re-start, and each was driven by some sense of duende, by something beyond ordinary musical imagination, into an affecting passionate intensity. He was also clearly having a lot of fun doing this.
John’s playing was, quite simply, staggering, it was masterful, and it rocked. Get this: he plays a lightning run, which takes the solo to a place he needs it to go, yet, you can see he is either not finished, or not satisfied yet. Dramatically –and it is all drama– John flings back his left hand from the fretboard, closes his eyes into a tight frown, indicating a sudden message to himself: more! more! more! Then, he launches into an even more intense, and highly complex –but, because he is a master of the fretboard, highly fluent–further series of runs. Finally, and only after navigating a path that is now radiating total swing and groove, does he bring the tune to exactly where, in the depth of his musical imagination, he has wanted it to end up. This is what a musical journey looks like on stage. Then it’s Bravo! or something decidedly less articulate, but every bit as expressive, from the likes of us, witnessing the genius of the man
I could go on. When people talk about John
McLaughlin’s (very considerable) part in the founding of jazz-rock in the late
sixties and early seventies, one might be forgiven for thinking that that was
attributable to some conscious decision on his part to alter the course of jazz
music, and jazz-guitar. Well, I don’t think it was quite like that. Rather, I think
that for John McLaughlin, jazz is lacking
something if it doesn’t have that bite,
that kind of hardness you find in abundance in rock music, and of course in the
Blues. That does not mean that all his music is hard and rocking, but it does
mean that within even the most tender ballads he has produced over the years,
there is an edge of sorts, which bespeaks a depth of experience and empathy
with those who have suffered pain, or felt the heights of joy.
There were three good examples of this quieter-but-no-less-driven side to his play, and his compositional approach. In ‘Maharina’ (from the 2008 Floating Point) John’s playing was superbly nuanced and expressive, allowing plenty of space for the melody, which is a musical love-letter to his wife Ina, to grow and blossom. In ‘Senor CS’, it was just John and Gary, on straight-piano-sound keyboards (albeit with ambient synth), making a statement of great emotional import, the piece being a tribute, of course, to Senor Carlos Santana. Every line and every instance of interplay was weighted with a sense of love which never strayed toward hollow over-sentiment. The emotional aspect was also founded on the fact that this song marks the beginning of Gary Husband’s work with John McLaughlin on the 2006 album Industrial Zen. Furthermore, if we’re talking about the quieter pieces in tonight’s gig, we had a beautiful rendering of the tune from the brilliant 1978 album Electric Dreams, which again showed McLaughlin’s sense of empathy with others, and his political consciousness: ‘The Unknown Dissident’. As he prefaced it, the title is ‘unfortunately’ still relevant. In all of the songs he played tonight, John’s playing exhibited all of the experience he has accumulated over a lifetime of producing music of the highest quality: when required to be fierce in approach, he was fierce in approach, and when required to be nuanced and sensitive, he was nuanced and sensitive. Whatever the musical vehicle, John was masterful, not in spite of his years, but precisely because of them.
All of the band members excelled at what they did. Their musical personalities were evident from the get-go. Gary Husband had two arenas to himself: the keyboards (with a variety of synth-sounds and standard piano), and the drums. The switch to drums, about halfway through ‘Call & Answer’ (from the 2012 Now Here This) was refreshing and attention-grabbing: he took immediate control with a display of hard bob drumming which invigorated the tune. Then, later, his synchronization with Ranjit’s work became a further feature of depth and difference on a stage which delighted in surprising the audience. Gary’s own ‘fourth dimension’ turned out to be a synth drum, used sparingly, but adding greatly to his muscular performance with the sticks: sudden atonal bursts of sonic texture.
Ranjit Barot provided the main drumming, and delivered nothing short of dramatic accompaniment throughout the set. This is jazz, but this is jazz with a rock-like backing. The jazz aspect is there in the nuances and the syncopation and the timing, but Ranjit really rocked the stage. He had power in his stick-play to rival any hard rock drummer, and actually broke a pair in full play. Later, during ‘Echoes from Then’, his Konnakol singing recalled Trilok Gurtu, bringing us back to the heady heights of Live at the Royal Festival Hall (a 1989 event which I was lucky to witness). The sudden switch offered an unexpected sonic variety in the straight-ahead blues-heavy piece which nods toward Mahavishnu and The Dance of Maya. He resumed the Konnakol vocalizing for the final long set-piece ‘Mother Tongues’ (where Trilok had really come into his own), which became a vehicle not only for extended solos by McLaughlin, but for both drummers, working in a unison of groove.
Etienne's mastery of the bass fretboard was fearsome. He made his presence felt from the very opening piece, injecting a very muscular funk into the proceedings. He always provided the most exciting and textured backing, but when it was his turn to turn it on, so to speak, he left the audience in a kind of awe. In ‘Hijacked’, Etienne played a solo which was at the same time graceful and rambunctious. He really does have the ‘chops’ of a great electric bass-player and carries on the bop which is part of the legacy of the great Jaco (whom he reveres). As a footnote to the ‘muscularity’ of his play, as he later told me, he gets the gloves he uses from mountaineering shops. He loves the texture!
The encore was ‘You Know You Know’, which, given this new phase in McLaughlin’s musical career, was highly appropriate. If fans are looking for John McLaughlin to get back to his hard jazz-rock roots, they can be well satisfied with what he has produced with this present band, the 4th Dimension. ‘You Know You Know’, the penultimate track from the 1971 Inner Mounting Flame, was rendered here with deep feeling for The original Mahavishnu Orchestra. That band had defined hard jazz-rock. With his new grungy, distortion-laden, and often unrestrained, but always authoritative, playing, John seems to be in the mood for such music again. And with The 4th D, he has the means to deliver. The encore was a powerful re-working of the original, complete with all its precipitous ascensions to electric intensity, and, well, its hipness (to borrow a term from the seventies!).
There were three good examples of this quieter-but-no-less-driven side to his play, and his compositional approach. In ‘Maharina’ (from the 2008 Floating Point) John’s playing was superbly nuanced and expressive, allowing plenty of space for the melody, which is a musical love-letter to his wife Ina, to grow and blossom. In ‘Senor CS’, it was just John and Gary, on straight-piano-sound keyboards (albeit with ambient synth), making a statement of great emotional import, the piece being a tribute, of course, to Senor Carlos Santana. Every line and every instance of interplay was weighted with a sense of love which never strayed toward hollow over-sentiment. The emotional aspect was also founded on the fact that this song marks the beginning of Gary Husband’s work with John McLaughlin on the 2006 album Industrial Zen. Furthermore, if we’re talking about the quieter pieces in tonight’s gig, we had a beautiful rendering of the tune from the brilliant 1978 album Electric Dreams, which again showed McLaughlin’s sense of empathy with others, and his political consciousness: ‘The Unknown Dissident’. As he prefaced it, the title is ‘unfortunately’ still relevant. In all of the songs he played tonight, John’s playing exhibited all of the experience he has accumulated over a lifetime of producing music of the highest quality: when required to be fierce in approach, he was fierce in approach, and when required to be nuanced and sensitive, he was nuanced and sensitive. Whatever the musical vehicle, John was masterful, not in spite of his years, but precisely because of them.
All of the band members excelled at what they did. Their musical personalities were evident from the get-go. Gary Husband had two arenas to himself: the keyboards (with a variety of synth-sounds and standard piano), and the drums. The switch to drums, about halfway through ‘Call & Answer’ (from the 2012 Now Here This) was refreshing and attention-grabbing: he took immediate control with a display of hard bob drumming which invigorated the tune. Then, later, his synchronization with Ranjit’s work became a further feature of depth and difference on a stage which delighted in surprising the audience. Gary’s own ‘fourth dimension’ turned out to be a synth drum, used sparingly, but adding greatly to his muscular performance with the sticks: sudden atonal bursts of sonic texture.
Ranjit Barot provided the main drumming, and delivered nothing short of dramatic accompaniment throughout the set. This is jazz, but this is jazz with a rock-like backing. The jazz aspect is there in the nuances and the syncopation and the timing, but Ranjit really rocked the stage. He had power in his stick-play to rival any hard rock drummer, and actually broke a pair in full play. Later, during ‘Echoes from Then’, his Konnakol singing recalled Trilok Gurtu, bringing us back to the heady heights of Live at the Royal Festival Hall (a 1989 event which I was lucky to witness). The sudden switch offered an unexpected sonic variety in the straight-ahead blues-heavy piece which nods toward Mahavishnu and The Dance of Maya. He resumed the Konnakol vocalizing for the final long set-piece ‘Mother Tongues’ (where Trilok had really come into his own), which became a vehicle not only for extended solos by McLaughlin, but for both drummers, working in a unison of groove.
Etienne's mastery of the bass fretboard was fearsome. He made his presence felt from the very opening piece, injecting a very muscular funk into the proceedings. He always provided the most exciting and textured backing, but when it was his turn to turn it on, so to speak, he left the audience in a kind of awe. In ‘Hijacked’, Etienne played a solo which was at the same time graceful and rambunctious. He really does have the ‘chops’ of a great electric bass-player and carries on the bop which is part of the legacy of the great Jaco (whom he reveres). As a footnote to the ‘muscularity’ of his play, as he later told me, he gets the gloves he uses from mountaineering shops. He loves the texture!
The encore was ‘You Know You Know’, which, given this new phase in McLaughlin’s musical career, was highly appropriate. If fans are looking for John McLaughlin to get back to his hard jazz-rock roots, they can be well satisfied with what he has produced with this present band, the 4th Dimension. ‘You Know You Know’, the penultimate track from the 1971 Inner Mounting Flame, was rendered here with deep feeling for The original Mahavishnu Orchestra. That band had defined hard jazz-rock. With his new grungy, distortion-laden, and often unrestrained, but always authoritative, playing, John seems to be in the mood for such music again. And with The 4th D, he has the means to deliver. The encore was a powerful re-working of the original, complete with all its precipitous ascensions to electric intensity, and, well, its hipness (to borrow a term from the seventies!).